


all's fair, alright (the détente remix)

by friday



Category: Day6 (Band), GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15870381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friday/pseuds/friday
Summary: Jinyoung finds out that the newest Chosen One is Yoon Dowoon, and that Brian Kang is back in town. Amidst all the chaos, an opportunity for him to correct past mistakes presents itself. He takes it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naladot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naladot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [this is it, boys, this is war](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954042) by [elliebell (Naladot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naladot/pseuds/elliebell). 



> thank you for the chance to get to know your amazing fic! i hope you enjoy this!

Onstage, Jinyoung snapped his fingers. An ice sculpture began building itself from the foundation up, until a perfect miniature replica of Gyeongbokgung, pristine and unmelting, stood next to him.

Waving away the murmurs of admiration and applause from the crowd, Jinyoung smiled. “This has always more or less been the extent of my power,” he explained. “It looks flashy, but as you can imagine, it’s not exactly much help in a fight.”

He paused, letting a laugh ripple through the crowd. When he smiled again, it was with what Wonpil used to call his hero stance when they were kids and what Yugyeom now called, _ew, gross, how do you even live with yourself_ —chin slightly tilted, shoulders squared, eyes in charming crescents. He could feel everyone in the room lean imperceptibly forward, caught and then reeled in on the confidence and strength he radiated with the perfect, even teeth of his smile.

He leaned forward himself, the hard wood of the podium steady beneath his hands. On cue, the curtains parted behind him, revealing the rest of his team. The ensuing gasps of the crowd both buoyed and affirmed him. Jackson, pitch perfect, stepped forward first, throwing an arm around his neck and grinning into the sudden maelstrom of camera flashes. The rest followed, and even in the periphery of Jinyoung’s vision, they looked good: handsome, and impenetrable.

Jinyoung reached for Jackson and Youngjae’s hands on either side of him, knowing even without looking when he felt both their palms in his that it’d been one seamless action down the line. There was Mark and Jaebum on Jackson’s other side, the two of them looking impeccable and chiseled under the lights despite the deep furrow in Jaebum’s brow, and then Bambam and Yugyeom on Youngjae’s other side, twin grins on their faces.

He stepped back into formation so they could bow. When they resurfaced, dropping their hands, he stepped forward so he could speak into the mic again: “But hero work is about more than just power. It’s about trust. The Glorious Seven will work hard to become heroes you can believe in—we won’t let you down.”

 

 

 

Jinyoung’s powers had first started manifesting when he was twelve, when he found that it didn’t matter how hot he ran the bath, because it’d turn icy cold within minutes once he climbed in. His parents suspected he was making it up, or doing it for attention. No one would’ve thought it was powers.

Why would they? It was the mid-2000s. There had been supers before, of course—that year, the Rising Gods of the East was proving to be the most popular superhero collective East Asia had ever seen, with nary an inkling of the discord that would eventually rip the members apart—but they were still rare, generational. Besides, all the origin stories he’d ever heard were practically biblical in nature. Double strikes of lightning, early and/or tragic parental abandonment, that kind of thing. Not too-cold bathwater, and his parents grounding him for a month straight because they thought he was lying.

It wasn’t until Jinyoung made it to JYP that he learned most of those origin stories had been exaggerated or fabricated, that most people’s backgrounds were not unlike his own: parents who loved him, even if they didn’t always understand him. Two doting older sisters. A childhood marked by long summers spent by the sea or in front of his TV. An adolescence spent being, if not the most popular boy in class, at least one of them, gregarious and well-liked. Few, if any, tragedies. Their time spent at the training center was about to be the most any of them had suffered in their lives.

It was an early lesson, and an most important one: heroes existed in service to their people’s imaginations.

 

 

 

 _Great speech_ , was the note that was waiting for Jinyoung on his bed when they returned to their dorms. Eighty pound cardstock. Creamy linen, with a matte finish. A tasteful, but unremarkable scent. A completely innocuous piece of stationery, made conspicuous by its lack of identifying characteristics. _Maybe even your best one yet!_

_Give me a ring when you get this. We have a mission that only the Glorious Seven can fulfill._

_I am sure you won’t let us down._

 

 

 

His parents didn’t truly understand what he was capable of until newspapers around the country started reporting on the sudden influx of supers amongst them. Turned out that groups like the Rising Gods of the East and Big Bang were just the beginning of a superpowered generation that sociologists and historians would be examining for years. Suddenly, research and training facilities could have their pick of the litter, so to speak, and a whole cottage industry sprung up around identifying supers. It seemed like every week there was a new study or test or algorithm that claimed to best separate the wheat from the chaff, that would essentially scan a crowd of superpowered children and flag the ones who had the potential to be heroes.

It was incredible that someone could look at a child capable of doing things that should only exist in the imagination and deem them not enough. Still, the arbitrary standards persisted. Power and complexity were givens, of course, but the people setting the tests were only human, easily attracted to big noises and flashy lights. Invisibility, for example, Wonpil’s power, was a biological and technical marvel, an endlessly useful power that had the rare distinction of manifesting immediately and whole, and yet still people leaned towards, literally, things that went _boom_.

And, of course, they looked for potential. There was telekinesis that would never be anything more than a parlor trick, and then there was telekinesis that could raze a city or coax a body into going against its will, if honed.

Cryokinesis—ice manipulation, Jinyoung’s power—was a bit more useful than just a parlor trick, but he was never going to carry a franchise or save a city by himself. Still, even as an awkward, gangly teen, there was something about Jinyoung. Call it charisma, call it the X factor—whatever it was, it was something nebulous and unquantifiable, but it made the difference between a super and a hero. There were heroes compelled by their powers, and there were heroes who were compelled despite. Even as a kid, capable of little more than turning a mug of water into chunks of ice, Jinyoung has always known which one he is.

 

 

 

He took out his phone, and thumbed over to the encrypted communications app whose main demographic bases dealt either in supers or drugs. It rang twice before Taecyeon picked up.

“Hey, hyung. It’s Jinyoung.”

“Jinyoung.” Taecyeon’s voice was as smooth as a bolt of velvet, as the first sip of an aged merlot. “Congratulations again on your speech. Quite the performance.”

Against his better instincts, Jinyoung felt his shoulders straighten with pride. Part power, part the force of his natural personality, Taecyeon’s approval was one of the sharpest weapons in his arsenal. “Thank you,” he said, suddenly shy. “I got your note, you mentioned a mission…?”

Taecyeon laughed. “That’s right,” he said. “Thank you for reminding me, Jinyoung.” He paused, and Jinyoung tightened the grip on his phone. Taecyeon was being extra complimentary today, which could only mean one thing— “We’ve got another Chosen One.” 

 

 

 

The flip side of the sudden influx of supers, even with all the new tests, was that there was also a sudden influx of heroes. Seoul was big, but there was only so much crime one city could produce, and that was even after taking into consideration that most heroes spent at least part of the year loaned out to other cities in Asia. Tokyo, given its storied history, was the most popular next option.

The Glorious Seven did quite well for themselves, but there was no denying which heroes had a vice grip on Seoul’s public imagination. You couldn’t walk down the shortest alley in Myeongdong without hearing the theme song for the Bangtan Boys’ animated series blaring from a store, or running into lifesize cutouts of Kang Daniel, South Korea’s answer to Clark Kent, whose likeness was used to shill everything from children’s pajamas to soju.

Two years after the first super facilities, targeted solely to training, research, and development, were opened, the first private super firm opened.

 _Super You_ , was the official tagline. _Heroes for hire_ , always accompanied by a derisive snort and shake of the head, was what the people who could afford to claim the moral superiority called it.

It was true that private firms were not always the most ethical, that supers who went private were sometimes called upon to do things that violated the code of conduct and honor that they’d all symbolically signed upon being officially registered as supers. But it paid, and corporate marketing was nothing to scoff at. Some heroes, like YG’s Winner, made their whole careers after privatization.

Jinyoung has always wanted to be a hero, but Jinyoung needs to live, too. So what if they’ve gone corporate? There was no ethical heroism under late capitalism.

 

 

 

 _Hey guys_ , Jinyoung sent into their group chat.

The replies came in almost instantaneously, as he assumed they would.

_wah jinyoung-hyung, miss me already??_

_sup jinyoungie~_

_omg_  
_did we kick ass or WHAT today!!!!!_  
_great job you guys i fuckin love y’all_  
_you know you’re like my brothers for real_  
_bros 4 LYFE am i right lol_  
_g7 jjang as fuck_

He paused, thumbs hovering over his screen, and swiped over to consult the talking points he’d drafted in his iPhone notes.

_Good news. We got a mission!  
Chosen One_

Of all the jobs Jinyoung and the rest of the Glorious Seven had taken on for Taecyeon and his organization in the past, Chosen One work was the most lucrative. It had the highest risk, and thus the highest reward. The objective of every Chosen One mission was simple: recruit, and if that didn’t work, then deter. Chosen Ones were bad for business; just look at supers like Kang Daniel or IU, who were going to make the rest of them obsolete one of these days. Better for everyone that they were either under contract, or nudged—gently or aggressively—in the direction of a different career.

It was how Taecyeon had gotten his start.

He’d debuted as part of a concept group: 2PM, the Beast Heroes. Jay Park, the leader and only full human of the group, was a pint-sized dynamo blessed with both super strength and the ability to cast an impenetrable protective net that could fully cover five city blocks. Taecyeon recognized early on Jay’s Chosen One potential and the potential it had to wreck 2PM. To save the group, he urged him to leave the hero life behind and consider a career in music instead.

These days, Jay was the head of a well-respected hip-hop music label, and had just been signed to Roc Nation for American distribution. Really, Taecyeon had done him a favor.

_cool_

_who’s the mark???  
lol get it ‘mark’ hahahahah_

_you’re rly not funny, gyeom :)_

_hey mark-hyung…  
fuck you too :)_

_who is it, jinyoung-hyung?_

Their current record was one failure and three successes. The failure was Christopher Bang, aka Bangchan, who they’d actually known from their JYP days. He had resisted, gone into hiding, and was rumored to be behind the group of vigilante superteens tearing up Seoul. Of the three successes, there was one Chosen One currently in Taecyeon’s employ, another living out her best life as a normal university student. One casualty. Pretty good odds.

Jinyoung hit send before he could lose his nerve:

_Well  
It’s Dowoon_

 

 

 

Here’s Jinyoung’s real tragic backstory:

JJ Project was unveiled in Seoul in 2012. They were widely perceived to be a failure, a botched rollout, and it was all Jinyoung’s fault.

Four years prior, Park Jinyoung had arrived at the JYP training compound at the same time as Im Jaebum. Tests had ranked the two of them as the most promising trainees of their class year: Jinyoung had scored off the charts in charisma, presence, and marketability, and Jaebum was a super twice over, which was rare enough, and that was even before it was widely known among the trainees that his two powers were super strength and clairvoyance, among the most coveted of powers.

And so, Jinyoung and Jaebum were linked together from day one. For better or for worse, their fates were always going to be tied together. Ambitious, and perhaps motivated in part by an admiration that wasn’t entirely platonic, Jinyoung wouldn’t stop seeking Jaebum out in those early days. Every time he saw him, a feeling swelled within him. If articulated, it would be something like: _It must have been fate that we ended up here together, hyung. I think we could be something really special. Believe in me, so you can believe in us. You won't regret it._

Jinyoung’s biggest regret, where Jaebum was concerned, was that he should’ve said it out loud so they could’ve worked towards it together, instead of him trying to rep a bond that didn’t yet exist. It was made worse when the subsequent classes of trainees started coming in.

Jinyoung met Wonpil, Jaebum met Sungjin. They all met Jackson and Mark and Jae and Brian. But Jinyoung was stubborn and idealistic, and he’d glimpsed a dream of him and Jaebum way back in 2008, and it was hard to shake.

So Jinyoung continued on his dogged quest to make Jaebum see it, too: they trained together, they lived in the dorms together, they fought, a _lot_ , and finally they were told that their projected marketability, hard carried by Jinyoung’s enthusiasm and their seniority compared to everyone else, was high enough that they were going to get to debut together.

Long, boring story short, they didn’t make the impact JYP hoped they would.

They were recalled from the field. Two years later, the Glorious Seven was born. 

 

 

 

“You knew,” Jinyoung said, accusing. He leaned on the door to Jaebum’s studio and crossed his arms, trying to keep his temper in check.

Jaebum didn’t even budge from where he was sitting in front of his computer. Jinyoung knew Jaebum had heard him, because his headphones were around his neck, and because Jaebum had briefly paused in the game of computer solitaire he was playing when Jinyoung had walked in.

Jinyoung tried again. “You had a vision, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me? Us?”

Jaebum moved a seven of spades onto an eight of hearts.

“Hello?”

Jaebum moved a tail extending from the six of diamonds onto the seven of spades, finishing the game, and they both watched as Jaebum’s stacks shuffled into neat decks, CGI fireworks exploding across his screen.

 _PLAY AGAIN?_ asked a pop-up dialog box.

Finally, Jaebum turned to Jinyoung. “What,” he said flatly. His ratty mullet and oversized Nike hoodie—the Glorious Seven had an Adidas sponsorship—felt like personal attacks on Jinyoung.

Jinyoung opened his mouth, and then closed it again. All his eloquence escaped him, as it always seemed to in front of Jaebum. Among other reasons, this seemed representative of why JJ Project had never worked out. Teammates were supposed to make you better, not be your source of insecurity. Jinyoung had liked the person he thought he could be if teamed up with Jaebum so much that he was too willing to overlook the person he actually was when they were together.

“You knew,” Jinyoung repeated. “About Dowoon. Taecyeon said.”

Jaebum rolled his eyes, not even bothering to hide the action. “Uh, yeah,” he said, like Jinyoung was an idiot. “That’s how clairvoyancy works. You know, my power?”

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

Jaebum’s impatience, always close to the surface, was starting to bubble over. “Why do I need to tell you if I already told Taecyeon?”

Because Taecyeon had assumed Jinyoung already knew. And he was right—Jinyoung should’ve known. 

“Because we’re teammates,” Jinyoung finally said, hands tightening around the door handle.

“Teammates,” Jaebum said. “Right.”

He turned back to his solitaire, the conversation over. There were a lot of things Jinyoung wished he had the courage to say in this moment: _how long are you going to hold things against me? I’m sorry I am not the teammate you want. Life is hard sometimes, Jaebum. You don’t always get everything you want. You might not even get most of what you want. I’m sorry I will never be Park Sungjin, and I’m sorry you think I took him away from you._

“Fine,” was what he said.

Jaebum opened solitaire again. _PLAY AGAIN?_ the dialog box still asked. _Yes_ , Jaebum clicked.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Taecyeon didn’t even bother sending a note.

“Yes?” Jinyoung asked when he picked up.

“So, I hear Brian Kang’s on his way back to Korea,” was the ominous reply.

Jinyoung paused, racking his brain. There was only one person who could’ve told Taecyeon, and Jinyoung had just gone to see him yesterday. Did Jaebum so much as breathe a word about it to him, considering the fact that Jinyoung had been there to talk to him about the necessity of communication? Of course, not at all.

“Yes,” Jinyoung replied, belatedly. He hoped he sounded like he was in control of the situation, realizing he very likely did not.

“Yes,” Taecyeon repeated, patiently. “So what are you going to do about it?”

There was clearly only one right answer here.

“Stop him?”

“Great! Get on it.”

Taecyeon hung up with a click.

Jinyoung stared at his phone, a sinking feeling in his stomach. _Brian Kang_ was a name he hadn’t heard in years, because last he’d heard, Brian Kang had gone back to Canada after the incident to work at some super research and analytics firm. If he was on his way back to Korea, it was probably because of Dowoon, which meant he’d probably try to get in touch with some of his old team members, which meant Wonpil and Jae and Sung—no. Jinyoung was _not_ going to jump to conclusions.

He thumbed back to the Glorious Seven group chat.

 _Brian kang’s back_ , he started typing, and even got as far as _Brian kang_ , when AutoCorrect helpfully asked if he meant _kangaroo_ , and then he scrolled up and saw Jaebum’s _cool_ , the first message he’d sent in the group chat in eight months—not that Jinyoung was keeping count or anything—and then he deleted what he typed. Maybe, after all this time, it was time to start listening to what Jaebum wanted.

 

 

 

 _OPERATION: CHOSEN ONE, CHOOSE US_ was scrawled on the whiteboard in red dry erase marker when Jinyoung walked in. He paused to look at it.

“Who did this?” he asked.

Jackson raised his hand, beaming.

“Are you proud of yourself?” Jinyoung asked.

“Yes!”

“Well, okay then,” Jinyoung said, shrugging.

He slipped into his seat at the head of the conference room table, and looked at his assorted group members around him. Jaebum was conspicuously missing, but Jinyoung ignored that. Jackson, who had the busiest work schedule of all of them because he was so beloved in the vast Chinese market, had somehow acquired even more WANG paraphernalia in the time that Jinyoung had last seen him, which was three days ago. Mark was lounging in his chair, not even hiding the fact that he was playing Fortnite on his Switch. Youngjae, who was the only one of them to go semi-civilian, doing just the bare minimum as he rode out the rest of their contract, looked eager, because he still found hero work exciting. Bambam and Yugyeom were in matching leather jackets, so new that Jinyoung was pretty sure that he’d be able to see the tags on them if he squinted.

“Okay,” Jinyoung said, clapping once. “Strategy meeting. How should we approach this?”

“Easy,” Yugyeom said. “It’s Dowoon-hyung! We swoop in, we look menacing but impressive but also welcoming, and we tell Dowoon-hyung, _join us or die!_ ” He paused. “I mean, not die. More like, _join us or promise to never do hero work ever again! And then sign this contract, because verbal agreements aren’t legally recognized in a court of law_.”

Bambam nodded in support, just as Jinyoung was seized with a desire to hit Yugyeom.

“Okay,” he said, trying not to indulge his basest instincts. “Um, good start, Yugyeom, thanks. Maybe we can start a little smaller. Like, where can we find Dowoon?”

Youngjae raised a hand. Jinyoung nodded at him. “Can’t Jaebum-hyung tell us?”

Jinyoung raised his eyebrows at him. “Do you want to ask him?”

A pause, as they all thought about the last time any of them had tried to ask Jaebum to help with a Chosen One case beyond what was expected of him/stipulated in his contract, i.e. show up at the last minute before they actually made contact, and sign his name to the bottom of the report Jinyoung painstakingly compiled after each mission. None of them wanted to ask him.

Youngjae kept his hand up, though, so Jinyoung nodded at him again. “I have an idea.” He looked nervous, but excited. “What about asking Wonpil-hyung, Jae-hyung, and Sungjin-hyung? I bet they still keep in touch with him. Jae-hyung still keeps me on his music release email blast.”

Bingo. It was a good idea, and more importantly, it was the idea Jinyoung had wanted to hear.

“Great idea, Youngjae!” Jackson said, before Jinyoung could say anything.

“Yeah, but how are we supposed to find them?” Yugyeom butted in, looking a little miffed that his idea had been deemed logistically premature.

Jinyoung _ahem_ -ed, then held up his phone once everyone turned to look at him.

“Wonpil shared his location with me years ago and then forgot to turn it off,” he explained. “It looks like they’re on their way to… the JYP compound?”

“Oh yeah,” Mark said, suddenly. “Some YouTubers bought out the space—there’s a big League training retreat going on there right now.”

“Thank you, Mark-hyung, that’s… surprisingly helpful, actually,” Jinyoung said. “Okay, great. So we all know where we’re going and what we’re doing. Yugyeom, take Bambam—I’ll send you the location so you guys can go ahead and try to delay them while the rest of us head directly to the compound. Sound good, everyone?”

A smattering of nods all around. “Great. Glorious Seven, let’s get it!”

 

 

 

Jinyoung magnanimously volunteered himself as the messenger who would have to tell Jaebum they were going on the job. His texts were a work of high literature and subterfuge, in his opinion:

_Dowoon_  
_Operation: Chosen One, Choose Us_  
_Jyp compound, 15 min_  
_Be there or I’ll write you up_

_goddammit, jinyoung_

 

 

 

They make it to the grounds of the compound, grumpy-faced Jaebum in tow. Bambam had texted them to say he and Yugyeom had created a satisfactory diversion, and also that Brian Kang was back in town.

_BRIAN KANG!!_  
_i mean, what the hell!!!_  
_brian kang????????_  
_that guy, like, raised me!_  
_ngl_  
_he’s kinda hot now lol_

Good intel, as always. Bambam and Yugyeom showed up a second later with a _pop!_ , Bambam looking a little starstruck.

They milled around for a bit looking for them, because Jinyoung didn’t get very good service up here and apparently neither did Wonpil, his location dot flickering in and out. They were in the fields leading up to the YouTube mansions when they heard the dulcet tones of Jae’s annoying voice cut through the silence.

“Group hug! Sungjin, I will actually, one hundred percent use my telekinetic powers to make you join this group hug if you do not do so by your own will.”

Sungjin’s response was inaudible, but judging by the period of silence that followed, Jinyoung was pretty sure they were hugging.

Showtime.

He walked in the direction he’d heard Jae’s voice come from, and when he spotted the amorphous blob that was all of them huddling, he turned around to beckon his own team closer, ignoring the fact that Jaebum hadn’t stopped looking at Sungjin since he’d caught sight of him.

Then he cleared his throat and called out, making sure he could nail the tone, “You guys are so weird.”

 

 

 

Day6 had been the next planned male superhero group from JYP after the relative success of the Glorious Seven. There was an idealism and pure-heartedness to all of the members—Sungjin, Jae, Brian, Junhyeok, Wonpil, and Dowoon—that was clearly the unifying characteristic there.

Their debut also almost tore the Glorious Seven apart. Jaebum had always been close to Sungjin, except Jinyoung had thought it was more like they were close in the same way that he and, for example, Wonpil were close. But Jaebum actually went as far as trying to change his contract so he could debut again with Day6 instead, and then when that obviously didn’t work, he tried to dissolve his contract.

Jaebum had been in the middle of contract negotiation hell when the accident happened. Brian and Junhyeok had the idea of sneaking up to the old facility so they could use the equipment to broadcast a concert worldwide—idealistic _and_ pure-hearted—except that they’d started sniping at one another, and Brian, who, in true pyro fashion, was just the tiniest bit trigger happy, got too worked up and started sparking.

The old facility, which had been condemned for being basically radioactive, stood no chance. Junhyeok disappeared, Brian survived, but the facility and the grounds didn’t.

JYP had been in the throes of financial trouble before that anyway, but the accident meant that their image took a hit they weren’t going to come back from. Jaebum’s contract negotiations fell apart, because there were bigger things to worry about, now that JYP was dissolving.

Taecyeon swooped in, bought out their contracts, and brought them on. The Glorious Seven lived on.

Day6, who hadn’t signed official contracts yet, walked free. Brian went back to Canada, Jae went back to school, Dowoon went online, Wonpil went invisible, and Sungjin went back to the streets, to chase his first impossible dream.

He had always been a better man than Jinyoung. It was no wonder Jaebum had always been looking at him, instead.

 

 

 

Jinyoung really didn’t have anything against the former members of Day6 (except maybe Sungjin, but that was more just Jinyoung having something against himself). Still, it was kind of cathartic to charge at them. Wonpil flashed in and out of visibility, probably trying to distract him, but Jinyoung had spent years sparring with Wonpil—he was predictable, he was really not that good at fighting, and more importantly, he literally always ran in a straight line. All Jinyoung had to do was freeze the ground directly in front of him, and Wonpil was stumbling back into visibility, sliding into Jinyoung and collapsing them both into a heap on the ground.

Not a minute too late, either, because Brian chose that moment to go nuclear.

“ _Stop_!” Brian shouted, looking red in the face. “We are _adults_! We will use our _words_!”

In that moment, Jinyoung and Wonpil were supposed to be enemies kind of, maybe, but it was too much. Wonpil buried his face in Jinyoung’s neck to stifle his laughter. Jinyoung could feel Wonpil’s giggles reverberate through him, and when he looked around, he could see everyone with similar expressions of restrained laughter on their faces, even Jaebum’s.

Especially Jaebum’s. The joy on his face transformed him, making him look handsome and hopeful again, exactly like the boy Jinyoung, upon meeting back in 2008, had known immediately would be someone special one day. It was true that you never forget your first, as you shouldn’t. Jinyoung just hadn’t been giving all the other heroes he’d subsequently known their due.

Jackson, of course, was the one to break the ice. He landed with a surprising grace next to Brian, before immediately ruining the effect by jumping into Brian's unwilling arms. "I missed you, Brian Kang."

Jinyoung missed Brian Kang. They had all missed Brian Kang. And more importantly, Jinyoung had missed this feeling of camaraderie, unforced and genuine. There were no cameras to witness this, and so there would be no need to perform. Everyone moved in closer, forming a loose ring around Brian.

"This makes me feel like I'm in _Lord of the Flies_ ," Brian said, shuddering a little. "How about we all sit down."

He sat, everyone following his lead. Looking at all his friends gathered around him, everyone trying in this moment to do their best, Jinyoung felt like he could be a hero again, finally. Within him, what bubbled was the same giddy, pure joy that had accompanied the first time he’d walked off the coast into the ocean, and the water around him immediately crackled into a thin, perfect layer of ice. It was the feeling of seeing the far horizon of what you were capable of, knowing you may never get there, and wanting it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the slight emotional whiplash between the first and second chapters. and apologies for making taecyeon the villain (sort of)! someone had to do it. thank you again to naladot, and thank you for reading ♥


End file.
